The Joy of Life
by EchidnaHazard
Summary: Mister Eff is granted the wish of life after so long: So what does he intend to do with it?


The Joy of Life By Echidna-Hazard  
  
The doors of darkness open wide to receive me, to hail me as their unquestionable lord and master, as well they should. I can't feel anything except the wind in my face, blowing my hair back against my forehead, rushing into my closed eyelids, bringing me to a sensual awareness that I've never felt before.  
  
It's a zenith...a complete and total burst of joy that comes from suddenly feeling life after an eon of nothing but numbness.  
  
The streets are wide and deserted, they are more than happy to cater to the fleeting ghost who rushes from one side to the other, drinking in everything there is to see and feel and love...and hate. The joy. This joy of simply being, this joy of feeling.  
  
Corruption is a beautiful pleasure, though the smell is sickly, it calls to me with the lure of a diseased whore... minutes of pleasure for a lifetime of pain.  
  
Pain that I'm more than willing to embrace, so that I can fling it tenfold back at this world, this world that lies like a lethargic sloth in the middle of its love. This thing that suffers upon it emotion, and squanders it all. This monster that tastes and wastes everything nauseates me, but it's not enough to smother my euphoria.  
  
The street is cool and empty, dark and foreboding, but I'm not afraid. I am, after all, reveling in this emotional explosion, and I probably wouldn't have noticed the three guys behind me even if I weren't.  
  
"Hey!" one of them calls, "A bit late to be out, isn't it?"  
  
I wheel, a maddened look in my eyes, but I couldn't be happier. This new life from the Styrofoam remains has made me drunk, like a bee would unwittingly take too much pollen and become woozy, I've taken too much elation too fast, and I'm tipsy and clumsy. Time to slow down and watch myself.  
  
"The darkness is beautiful." I hiss, breathing deeply the smell of disease. A crooked smile twists my mouth, a wild spark lights the ruby eyes framed by dark-ringed mascara that glare out from under my wispy ebon hair. My death's-head skin adds to the effect, making me look like a capering ghoul caught at looting graves and enjoying every moment of it.  
  
"Man, you're as skinny as a little girl." Another of them jeers.  
  
The insult washes over me without effect and I hug myself with ecstatic glee. Rapturous bliss... victims. Perfect victims. Nny would not deny me the chance to kill these.  
  
The three are typical alley-thugs, one of them wearing a football jersey, his head shaved. Another of them wears a ridiculous cap with a skull on it, and is dressed all in black. The last has dyed his hair a pale green, and is wearing a leather jacket.  
  
I've never loved anything more in my whole life than the sight before me. But then, that isn't saying much. I love everything I see, and everything I see is mine.  
  
"You're mine." I inform them as soon as the thought enters my mind. They look confused, appropriately, but then menacing.  
  
The leader seems to be Skull, who draws out a gun almost as soon as I'm done speaking. "Why don't you relax, huh? We want to have some fun." He snarls.  
  
"Rape or robbery?" I ask with all the cheer of a guest at a party wondering about the flavor of the wine, "It's rape, isn't it? A bunch of insecure dicks like yourself...yes, you're definitely rapists."  
  
They stare as though I've just punched them all in the stomachs.  
  
The leader aims the gun at me: my grin fades just slightly. I've not experimented with lead slugs yet, and I don't know quite how they'll affect my human body. I really don't care to find out, either.  
  
Football frowns, "Better. Get down on the floor, prick."  
  
I cackle, reaching down to my waist. Almost like magic, two blades appear from the hidden belt, sliding into the curves of my hands as though they've been made to fit there. Surprise, surprise. They have.  
  
They're curved, oriental daggers. Made of obsidian, for ritualistic sacrifice. I love knives made of rock, as a small side note, because although the edge is never as sharp as normal steel or iron, it serves to cut more jaggedly.  
  
More pain for them, you see.  
  
"I'm sorry?" I ask, lightly, beginning forward. The wind blows my hair back, and I tilt my hat back on my head slightly. I see they're sizing me up.  
  
One of them, Green, points to my ascot, "What are you supposed to be? The Pillsbury Doughboy?"  
  
"Mm!" I agree appreciatively, "Now, that was clever. I might let you live."  
  
With those final words, I charge up to the three. Skull wasn't expecting a charge, and he fires wildly. Bang, bang, bang, and miss, miss, miss.  
  
With a smooth arc of my left dagger, the grace of a samurai and a movement honed to beauty by repeated action, I take off his gun hand. I hear it splatter on the floor somewhere nearby and pay no attention to his cry of agony. I turn on Football, looking quite evil. Skull reminds me of D-Boy, so I'll torture him a little before I move in for the kill. But this one annoys me.  
  
"Am I still a prick?" I ask softly, ducking down and ramming the other knife up into the soft groove between his thighs. He screams and I twist it around a little, in nirvana.  
  
"Ha ha!" I laugh, jerking it back out with little effort. I kick him down, leaving him groping at a bloody, ragged hole where his testicles used to be, and size up Green.  
  
"H-hey, man!" he stutters, "Y-You said y-you'd let me live!"  
  
I grin madly, enhanced and underlined by the splatter of blood across my face, "I said I might."  
  
With a panicked yelp, he turns to run, and I give chase, pouncing like a puma onto a rabbit. His head hits the ground with a meaty thud and then a crack of snapping bone, and I realize with some delight that I've landed on his arm while it was bent in an unyielding position.  
  
As he's screaming and flailing, I smoothly jam the knife in my right up to the hilt in his neck. His flailing stops, but his screaming doesn't, and I snigger in delight. I've hit right between one of his spinal discs, more likely than not paralyzing Green for the rest of his life.  
  
"I let you live after all. Stop crying, you big baby." I chide him, standing, then turning to look at my first victim. Skull. Football is still screeching and writhing in the mud of the alleyway, and I casually dispatch him as I pass, stomping on his head hard. Fortunately, I don't slip in the gunk that was once his brain as his cranium cracks audibly.  
  
"Hmm."  
  
Skull is clutching his hand, or the stump of it, backed up against a wall, sputtering.  
  
"Beg, little boy." I lean down, on one sinewy knee, gazing at him raptly, "Beg for your life. I've paralyzed your friend Green and slaughtered your buddy Football over there, you know."  
  
He simply stares, wide eyed. Trauma shock, probably. Worthless little pig. He probably wouldn't even feel it if I killed him now.  
  
"Give me your other hand, puke." I order, and to my delight, he holds it out. It's shaking quite a lot. I smell the rank scent of urine--the poor boy has pissed himself.  
  
Carefully, I take his hand in my own, gazing down at it. He's wearing one of those annoying silver class rings on his middle finger, and that one is, naturally, the first one I sever. His screeching rises to a crescendo, not because of the pain but because of the sight, and he tries to pull his hand away, but I tighten my grip so that he can't. I've grown a lot stronger since I was a Styrofoam doughboy, I'll tell you that much, and trying to pull his hand away from me made me clamp down with a strength like a vise. It's a dismal mercy that he can't feel it.  
  
I dig my knife into the center of his palm after I've taken off his other fingers, one by one, jerking upward, and then pull it back out. Both blades are slick with blood, now, but it hardly matters to me. Just another night's work, you see.  
  
Whistling, I turn and exit the street, walking down a different one. I find my way by the bright streetlights, sucking in the rancid air. The wind blows soothingly on my blood-soaked face, and I turn it to the sky.  
  
A shattering war cry pierces the city's quiet a moment later. I'm gone like the shadows fleeing before the sun, feeling the joy anew.  
  
The joy of life, and the joy of death. The wonderful corruption. 


End file.
